Putney and Roehampton 'Sold Short' in Bike Hangar Rollout
Fleur Anderson says only nine streets in the area to be given new facilities
Council says hangars allocated on basis of demand from residents
Putney’s MP Fleur Anderson is claiming that the SW15 postcode area has been sold short in Wandsworth Council’s recently announced roll out of bike hangars.
The council revealed last week that they would be installing 111 new street bike hangars spread across 74 streets in the borough. It is claimed that only nine of the 74 streets selected for new hangars are in Putney and Southfields, and there are none at all in Roehampton.
The list given out by the council includes 13 in the area but some of these have been mislabelled and are actually in Tooting or Earlsfield.
A lack of street bike hangars, particularly in areas near blocks of flats, often forces people to leave their bikes in unsecure places that are lacking in CCTV coverage. Wandsworth saw a 20.7% increase in bike thefts last year with 659 bikes reported as stolen with many more thefts unreported.
A call for requests for bike hangars on Fleur Anderson’s website last year got over 120 responses, with many of those coming from West Putney and Roehampton that she says have been completely left out of the rollout.
The streets in Putney and Southfields that will be getting bike hangars are Schubert Road, St John’s Avenue, Felsham Road, Norroy Road, Astonville Street, Longfield Street, Merton Road, Penwith Road and Ravensbury Road.
Ms Anderson said, “Many of those who got in touch said they were doing so because they’d had their bikes stolen multiple times or because there had been a spate of bike thefts on their roads. Others simply did not have anywhere to store them in their shared accommodation or their block of flats.
“I have had people contact me who live in flats where they cannot avoid storing their bike in their hallway, which brings complaints from neighbours and creates potentially hostile situations that just would not be necessary if there was a storage solution nearby.
“We plotted all the requests on a map of the area. The distribution was quite even across the constituency and there was a big demand for bike hangars in Roehampton. I just don’t see how Roehampton was left off the list altogether, the demand is clearly there.
“Our response to the climate emergency requires more people to move away from cars and for many people one of the biggest barriers to that is effective storage solutions, which has been compounded by the increase in bike thefts in the area.”
She is encouraging everyone who feels they have been left out by the rollout of bike hangars in the borough to respond to the council’s walking and cycling survey which closes on 10 September. She has also written to the Leader of the Council about the issue and suggested her constituents do the same.
A council spokesperson said, “These locations have been determined by the number of requests we’ve received from residents.
“We installed additional hangars in Putney last year and another seven are being introduced on estates in Roehampton as part of this current rollout. Residents who would like a bike hangar in their street can request one via our website."
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September 3, 2021